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I N T E R V I E W S Jump to: STUDIO 360 / WEEKEND AMERICA / WPS1 / KALW / SIGHT UNSEEN / RESONANCE FM IN LONDON / CITY IN EXILE TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE RADIO TANIA NEWSLETTER PLEASE CLICK HERE Current issues, events and trends in art are a jumping off point for an exploration of ideas that aren't necessarily "news," yet are provocative and offer a lens on experience that only art can provide. Studio 360 presents richly textured and emotionally resonant stories that look at art's creative influence and transformative power in everyday life. Studio 360 is a weekly show that airs nationally through Public Radio International. For times on your local NPR station, visit Studio 360 for station listings. PIRKLE JONES In 1956 Pirkle Jones got a call from Life Magazine for a photo assignment like no other. The farm town of Monticello California would soon be submerged under Lake Berryessa and vanish from the face of the earth. Jones joined his hero, the photojournalist Dorothea Lange, to document Monticello's final year in a series of photographs called Death of a Valley. To hear this piece, click here. LOS CARPINTEROS The artists in the Cuba-based collective Los Carpinteros connect with their country through their abstract multi media art. They work together as one unit yet they each have their individual roles and tasks. And most importantly, they embody many of the traits that are inherent in Cuban art, namely the innovativeness and the sense of use and re-use. To hear this piece, click here. NATURAL CAR ALARMS The artist Nina Katchadourian explains how she decided
to transform the car alarm, and install her new version that plays tape
loops of raucous bird calls in cars on city streets.
Weekend America is a two-hour program service designed to fit the weekend state of mind. Barbara Bogaev and Bill Radke host the program each week from Los Angeles, inviting listeners to a lively conversation about the issues of the week, the arts, and public affairs. We have some time, on weekends, to see the world through each other's eyes. To walk in someone else's shoes a bit, and go to places we wouldn't otherwise go. Stop by for a weekly visit with 300 million neighbors. For times on your local NPR station, visit Weekend America for station listings. WHY NOT JUST CALL ME? How do you turn a Crate & Barrel catalog into a giant social experiment? Artist Marc Horowitz found a way and it was as simple as writing his cell phone number on a piece of paper. IMPERMANENCE How do you manage your life knowing you're only on the earth for a short time? Filmmakers David and Hi-Jin Hodge have created a video exhibit called: Impermanence: the Time of Man. Their work is part of an international program called The Missing Peace Project. The program's purpose is to renew and revitalize global dialogue about peace. Weekend America sat down with the filmmakers to talk about how their thoughts on impermanence changed during the making of their work. To hear this piece, click here. NOT A GENUINE BLACK MAN As a child, Brian Copeland was noticed quickly in his San Leandro neighborhood. He was Black. His neighbors were nearly all white and many of them were heavily racist. He shares his experiences from that time in his one-man show called "Not A Genuine Black Man." Producer Tania Ketenjian joined him recently for a walk through his old neighborhood. To hear this piece, click here.
WPS1 is the world's first internet art radio station.The station's programs combine talk and music shows hosted by contemporary writers, artists and musicians with rare historic material that includes the entire audio archive of the Museum of Modern Art. WPS1 has become a live audio museum in cyberspace, extending the visual art, book, music, film, video and performance programs that P.S.1 and MoMA are known for in ways previously unforeseen. Here, at www.wps1.org, is the first all-art, all-the-time radio station, where expression of all kinds remains truly free. Shows air for one week, twice a day. San Francisco: Our Correspondent airs approximately every 2-4 weeks. EDITION #6: Mark Horowitz Mark Horowitz's medium is conversation, making connections with total strangers and seeing what
develops. In an attempt to explain how this is art work, I said that art is meant to change your perception, meant to ask
you to look at things in a different way, offer you an experience you normally don't have, and if you're lucky it affects you
in a way that is both lasting and profound. Through my conversation with Mark in his RV parked outside of the Old Sears Building
in San Francisco, I discovered this is what Mark does. And he has found great success in doing so. EDITION #5: Irreducible: Contemporary Short Form Video Irreducible: Contemporary Short Form Video, was on view in early 2005 at the Wattis Institute in San Francisco. The show presented video works by artists from over 20 different countries. By bringing together recent works that were structured around a single situation, action or individual, Irreducible offered pieces that re-visit and reinterpret video created in the late 60's and early 70's when video cameras first emerged. Artists were using the camera to document themselves working or performing or, in certain cases, simply walking across their studio. The new generation of video artists tend to use the medium to create art that represents and reflects upon the social and psychological landscape of the places they are from. Irreducible includes work from Romania, Scotland, Peru, Poland, Korea, Israel, and Norway. Ralph Rugoff, director of the Wattis Institute and and curator of Irreducible, spoke with correspondent Tania Ketenjian as they walked together through the installation. To hear this piece, click here. EDITION #4: "Noir City" and the Castro Theater Are repertory film houses succumbing to Hi-Def TV? Host Tania Ketenjian gathers three people steeped in the experience of American art-house cinema to pump up its volume in one of the hungriest film-going cultures in the world. Anita Monga was for many years the historic Castro Theater's chief programmer and is one of the most knowledgeable and enthusiastic film historians in the west. Eddie Muller created the popular "Noir City" film festival three years ago for the historic Castro Theater. Last year, after new owners relieve Monga of her job, she moved the festival to Gary Meyer's almost equally historic Balboa Theater, its new home in San Francisco. To hear this piece, click here. EDITION #3: Home Galleries As Tania Ketenjian tells the story, while New York artists priced out of Manhattan were moving to Brooklyn in the late 90s, a similar spike in San Francisco real estate values forced a number of artists and made it difficult for galleries to stay in business. Almost intuitively, she says, people started making galleries in their homes. Suddenly a domestic address would become a place for openings, a home for artists of different media, and the lines between home and art space blurred.Chris Perez created his first gallery in his Williamsburg apartment while working as an assistant curator on the 2002 Whitney Biennial, organizing a "stealth biennial" with artists he knew and admired. When he returned to his native San Francisco, he continued the practice and opened the showcase Ratio 3 Gallery in one room of his apartment, where Irish painter Conor McGrady recently had a solo show. Chris Sollars transformed his entire house, from the basement, up into 667 Shotwell, a homestead gallery that artists completely transform every month into new installations that are attracting serious collectors and crowds. To hear this piece, click here. EDITION #2: Soy y Que: New Chicano/Latino Representations Tania Ketenjian spotlights "Soy y Que: New Chicano/Latino Representations," one of three new exhibitions on view at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Arts Center (through January 9, 2005) featuring work by artists and collectives from California and Tijuana who treat portraiture as metaphor. Tania speaks to the Bay Area's Faviana Rodriguez, L.A.'s Shizu Saldamando, and exhibition co-curator Berin Golonu. To hear this piece, click here. EDITION #1: Aaron Ximm & Ralph Rugoff Bay Area correspondent Tania Ketenjian opens her
debut show on WPS1 with a visit to the quiet storm of sound artist Aaron
Ximm, host of San Francisco's weekly "Field Effects" concert series
- flush with his field recordings - and Ralph Rugoff, curator of "Baja
to Vancouver: The West Coast and Contemporary Art" at the California
College of the Arts, which not only dares to reopen the East Coast/West
Coast divide but attempts to redefine "regional" contemporary art in
a global culture.
KALW is a pioneering educational radio station licensed to the San Francisco Unified School District and broadcast at 91.7 FM. KAWL was the first FM station in San Francisco, as well as the first educational FM station in the United States, and the first station in San Francisco to broadcast NPR. Programming includes National Public Radio, Canadian and British broadcasting, as well as local productions. A Few Things Considered airs weekly on Sundays 3:30-4:00 p.m. PST on KALW. To listen to a show, click the title of the show. The life of a child in the foster care system is often unstable and constantly in flux. About two and a half years ago, a bay area group decided to use art as a way for foster youth to express themselves, and use the permanence of the photo image to give foster youth a chance to gain a sense of control over their lives. The program is called fostering art, and students meet with two teachers every week for four hours at SOMArts. To learn more about fostering art, please visit Fostering Art. The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts had an opening for their most recent show titled Big Deal. Big Deal was created as a reaction to the scarcity of availability of space that artists have. So, Yerba Buena offered several local artists their own gallery space to create large form sculpture. There was a special buzz in the room, as people observed themselves and became aware of their relationship to large pieces, and their own reaction to feeling, well, small. For more information please visit the Yerba Buena Center for the Art's site about the Big Deal and Blow Up. As time passes and companies merge, the world of corporations is growing. Individuality is lost, creativity is set aside, and the worlds of art and corporation become all the more disparate. Pond, a collective gallery space in San Francisco, wanted to address this issue and look at the world of intervention art, art that interrupts consumer spaces forcing you to stop and think about that space. For more information about Shopdropping, please visit the Pond's Shopdropping site.
Sight Unseen speaks with artists and creators of all mediums seeking to understand what drives them to make and develop the ideas that they have and how those ideas can affect the ways in which we as listeners view the world and ourselves. Sight Unseen airs weekly on Fridays from noon to 12:30 p.m. PST on KALX in Berkeley at 90.7 FM. Sight Unseen can also be heard on Resonance FM in London on Tuesdays ay 1:30 p.m. GMT. To listen to a show, click the title of the show.
The Rape of Europa is a documentary that has recently premiered here in the Bay Area at the SF International Film Festival. Today on Sight Unseen, the voices of two of the filmmakers RichArd Berge and Bonnie Cohen. The Rape of Europa tells the story of the systematic theft and deliberate destruction of tens of thousands of works of art by the Nazi party. As you may know, Hitler was an aspiring artist before he became the leader of the Nazi party. But when he applied to art school, he was rejected. Many people on the board of the university were Jewish and he was so infuriated by his rejection, and so obsessed with the notion of becoming a great artist and collector, that he and his party proceeded to quote un quote "collect", in other words forcefully steal from major museums around Europe. Some of the greatest treasures (Klimt, Raphael, Picasso, Rembrandt) were hidden in castles and salt mines, others were burned and destroyed. Many of these would have been entirely lost had a group of army men called the Monuments Men not been assigned to find them. There are still countless pieces still missing and other pieces that have been returned. And to add insult to injury, the Nazi party not only went into museums and art institutions but they went into people's homes, their private spaces, and took what they wanted. They stole furniture and artifacts, works that only have value to the owners themselves. The Rape of Europa looks at all of these aspects and poses the issue of the importance and exchangeability, or lack thereof, of life and art. In the film, art and life are one in the same, they can't live without the other and trying to wipe out art work and forcibly steal it from a country is much the same as wiping out that race. It takes their history, their memory, their pride. Richard Berge, Bonnie Cohen and I spoke about this, about parts of the film that never made it to the screen, about the volume of works stolen, the ways in which they were found, and the importance of contemporary jewish museums and how the creation of those museums is an attempt to reclaim a lost past. JOE STRUMMER: THE FUTURE IN UNWRITTEN The Clash is one of the most influential punk bands in history. In essence, they changed the face of music and they have influenced a wide range of creative luminaries such as Martin Scorsese and Steve Buscemi, Damien Hirst and Johnny Depp. We see all these faces and so much more in Julien Temple's most recent documentary Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten. Joe Strummer started the band whilst living in squats in London. A revolution was happening in music and some of the most groundbreaking sounds of the time were emerging, least of which was The Sex Pistols. They were around at the same the time The Clash was and then aspiring filmmaker Julien Temple had a choice. He knew something big was happening and wanted to document it in some way. So, at the time, he settled on The Sex Pistols and his first films were about them. He has since had a long and full career in film and his latest work turns to The Clash and particularly lead singer Joe Strummer. Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten is made beautifully in a pastiche of interviews, found footage, animation, concerts and personal interviews with Joe Strummer himself before his death at the age of 50. This film isn't just a chronicle of a band. As Julien Temple said, "You can call it a music film if you want but it's about celebrity [and] its effect [on] not just the fans but on somebody famous. Joe's life throws up so many ideas. I like him as a philosopher more than as a rock star." I spoke with Julien Temple when he was here in San Francisco. Cinematic Orchestra is a British band that is difficult to define by genre. MOJO said that their most recent album "builds into a grandly melancholic journey through life, love, family and, finally death, via chamber jazz intimacy, midnight acoustic buzz and rich orchestral sweep" while other places would see Cinematics as downtempo or acid jazz, trip hop, or even drum and bass. But really none of these titles suit them. Maybe what is most true is that their elemental, their reach a certain quiet space within you and rest their for a while, and their work is very well crafted much like a sculpture, removing the excesses to allow for an inner beauty to emerge. It's not the least bit surprising that this would be true considering that Jason Swiscoe, the founder of Cinematic Orchestra had just finished art school when he started this proejcting and in school, he was a scultpor. Since the bands inception, they have played music for ceremonies honoring filmmakers as presitigious as Stanley Kubrick, they have been asked to create the soundtrack for groundbreaking films Dziga Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera. Needless to say, they fall within the liminal spaces of a myriad of artistic genres. I spoke with Jason Swinscoe when he was in San Francisco performing. In 2004, a groundbreaking artist came onto the scene. Her work was uninhibited, vibrant and massive. She was being compared to Kandinsky and Pollock, she was discovered in a coffee shop in Binghampton, New York, and she was 4 years old. Her name is Marla Olmstead, you might have heard of her. In fact, if you watch television or follow the media, she would have been hard to miss. Her work, her name and her story was absolutely everywhere. The way she came about, outside of the confines of her home, was through a friend who had a cafe. He wanted to show her work there and sold a piece for $250. Then a gallery owner thought of having a show. The local paper wrote an article about it, the New York Times picked it up and her career soared. That is how filmmaker Amir Bar Lev discovered her. He was working in television and struggling to find a way out and in the New York Times, there she was. It seemed like the perfect story about modern and contemporary art. Her pieces were selling for 10s of thousands of dollars and after her opening, and the articles, there was an 85 person wait list for her work.And it was all the more engrossing because the media was so attached to Marla and it became a story about the media's role in creating the image and value of an artist. Amir Bar Lev called up the Olmstead family and was let in. But half way into filming marla, an expose came out on 6o minutes. It was suggested that Marla was not the sole creator of her work. In fact, it was her father that was helping her create these pieces and suddenly the story of a miraculous talent emerging from a shy and beautiful little girl who came from a modest and humble family start to crumble. Even Bar Lev had his doubts and we see all of this in his film "My Kid Could Paint That". the power of this film is that it doesn't offer answers but it extends a myriad of conversations, about art, the art world, media, family, and the role of a documentarian. The film was a sensation at Sundance and has been hailed as "the best documentary of this or any other year. I spoke with Amir Bar Lev when he was here presenting his documentary. Here, he tells the story of how he discovered Marla. There's a Romani proverb that states, you cannot walk straight when the road bends. You may wonder who I am referring to when I say Romani. Well, it;s the true name of a group of people that have long been called Gypsies. Mention the term gypsy in Europe and other parts of the world, and there arises an immediate disdain. Gypsies are seen as thieving travelers with no home, no clear identity, and no sense of community. But like most prejudices, this is sorely misconstrued and we get a sense of the truth of the Romani people through a film titled When the Road Bends, Tales of a Gypsy Caravan. Shot by legendary filmmaker, Albert Maysles, When the Road Bends takes you on a journey through five Romani bands from four countries who unite for the Gypsy Caravan as they take their show around North America for a six-week tour, sold out tour. What is amazing is how these people, with different languages and different customs begin to understand eachother and unite through music. Jasmine Dellal is the filmmaker and I spoke with her when she came to San Francisco. INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTORS-PART TWO Wu-Tang Wu-Tang Wu-Tang Wu-Tang....These were the chants coming from the crowd awaiting the appearance of the Wu Tang Clan at Rock the Bells, a music festival put together by producer Chang Weisberg and his team the Guerilla Union. It was the first time Wu Tang would be together after having broken apart several years earlier. This was 2004 and at the time, Denis Hennelly and Casey Suchan wanted to make a film about the event. Now Rock the Bells is also a documentary, one that followed the happenings of Chang and his team as he brought together Wu Tang Clan for that first time. It's hard to describe the legend of the Wu Tang Clan and all that they represent. When they first came on the scene in the early 90's, they embodied everything that hip hop is, strength, community, comraderie, mystery, talent. They started as three members, grew to nine, now, some say, they are 300 Wu Tang affiliates, rappers or producers that associate themselves with Wu Tang. The core memebers of Wu Tang have now become an all-star New York-based lineup of Grammy winners, multiplatinum-selling solo artists, multiplatinum record producers, film stars, screenwriters, TV stars, product spokespersons, business owners and, most recently, major motion picture composers. Needless to say, Wu Tang has gone quite far in a short period of time. However, the members of Wu Tang, while celebrties, are like a family, with their trials, tribulations, challenges, triumphs and pains, possibly the biggest one of which was the death of the infamous Old Dirty Bastard, also known as ODB. Rock the Bells, by filmmakers Denis Hennelly and Casey Suchan, observes all the intimacy and intricacy of producing an event of such portence, of bringing togther a band that loves eachother and struggles with their individual personalities, and of taking the viewer on a ride of a concert that could very well fall apart and become destructive. Rock the Bells has been the official selection at nearly 20 film festivals world wide and has received praise ranging from "a fascinating glimpse of a dreamer and a music culture that has always depended on dreams" to "it's like Dave Chapelle's block party grew testes." The art scene here in San Fracisco doesn't proclaim itself like the one in New York does, it doesn't shout out, some may even argue, there is no art scene. But hidden in the crevices are gems that shine brightly and one of those gems is Raimonds Staprans. San Francisco is not a place where you come to so to speak make it. You come here to live the life of those who have made it, or try your best to. It's such a beautiful city and it's hard to resist its charm. I imagine this is part of what artist Raimonds Staprans has felt, living here, away from his native Latvia. I learned of Raimonds Staprans from my studio mate and friend Gage. He had seen Staprans work at an opening at the Hackett Freedman gallery in downtown San Francisco. The brilliance of the paintings in color and the seeming loneliness, near emtiness in subject was initially an attractive contradiction for me in Staprans work. Like a haiku, there is a vastness in simplicity. and as staprans and I discussed in this interview, one can go so much further in thought when placed in stillness. I spoke with Raimonds Staprans at his home here in San Francisco. We sat before his window, a brilliant expansive view of most of the city. To my right was a painting that hung low on the wall. Staprans likes to hang paintings nearly at the floor. I was surrounded by his paintings and his presence. Born in 1927, Staprans has lived a full life, a painter in America, a playwritght in Latvia, a refugee of WWII. And yet his demeaner is in no way dramatic. He tells you how it is, as long as you ask. NOT GIVEN: TALKING OF AND AROUND PHOTOGRAPHS OF ARAB WOMEN-PART ONE NOT GIVEN: TALKING OF AND AROUND PHOTOGRAPHS OF ARAB WOMEN-PART TWO The exhibition Not Given: Talking of and Around Photographs of Arab Women is here from Marseilles and was curated by Isabelle Massu and Dore Bowen. When I spoke with the curators, they both commented on how interesting the reactions to such an exhibition has been here in the US as compared to France. The thing is, in the past few years, the image of the arab world in America has changed dramatically and has been tainted by media. Recent histories and our own sense of difference has made arab identity both skewed and inaccessible. The exhibition Not Given offers a very different, and possibly a clearer view of the arab world and particularly of arab women. The collection of photographs we see is drawn from the Arab Image Foundation, an organization that has meticulously collected images taken by and of arab peoples. The foundation not only has collected these images but has categorized them in a very distinctive and conscious manner, giving tags to each image—woman, man, tie, street. The images that Isabelle and Dore have focused on are images that were given the tag disguise. What we are faced with is images that may seem shocking to the occidental viewer, arab women kissing on the lips, arab women getting married, arab women standing naked, arab women crossdressing. The images are not sordid, in fact there is a sense of playfullness, a definite sense of disguise. However they are provocative because they put into question not only our assumptions about arab culture but our identity of arab women in particular. In this interview, we speak of the images themselves, the interest that Dore and Isabelle had when they first came across these photographs and the ways in which those perceptions have changed. TANYA ZIMBARDO-C0-CURATOR OF MEN IN GOLD by SYLVIE BLOCHER Money—in most circles the term is a vulgar one. It's not appropriate to speak about money, it's impolite, offensive, divisive, it conjurs up unwanted emotions and even though it drives much of what we do, how we spend our time and where we put our energies, it's a topic that is rarely discussed. French video artist Sylvie Blocher has created a piece that opens the conversation about money. It is titled Men in Gold and it is one of her ULA projects. ULA stands for Universal Local Art and what Blocher does is look at universal issues that manifest locally and create art works about it. She does this all over the world and in the case of the Bay Area and San Francisco, that universal issue was that of money. Blocher calls this area the Golden Valley and it is in this valley that money has sprouted at exponential growth in the last 10 years. The valley is Silicon Valley and it is there that many people became millionaires nearly overnight. Blocher and the SF MoMA essentially did a call out for millionaires, finding out through their networks who would want to be part of this project. Basically what these millionaires had to be willing to do was to sit and answer a series of questions from Blocher, questions about their relationship to money, do they sexualize it, do they feel guilty about it, does money isolate them, does it excite them. Blocher cuts out all her questions and you are left with the answers and the look of these entrepreuners, venture capitalists, these young men who have great wealth, reflecting on themselves, on their life and on this seemingly taboo topic. Blocher looks at how wealth manifests itself in society and in the person themselves. I erased an interview from my flash recorder, the precise interview I was going to use for this week's show and after searching everywhere and even coming to the point where I wondered if the file might be magically floating in my car, I have decided to just give up, settle up and offer what I can for the show and the piece and play music. So the piece that was going to air this week was an interview with the somewhat obscure but longstanding canadian band, Do Make Say Think. The band first played in an elementary school gymnasium. These words that make up their name were on the wall and so they were known as Do Make Say Think. Charles Spearin, the frontman who was one of the people I interviewed, is a father of two. Before Do Make Say Think became a band, it consisted of a bunch of friends hanging out in a living room , playing around with instruments and a 8 track. I asked him how is this different from sound art and while it is often difficult to distinguish the two, I think we ended up agreeing it came down to melody and intention. Now 10 years later, no longer a roomate but a father, Charles is still making music. It is his passion, it gives him meaning and it allows him to explore. The line between sound art and music is a fine one when it comes to this band. the song playing under me is a track from their first album and has the feel of a sound art piece. Ten years later, while their music has definitely matured, that sense of experimentation remains. Often the band will sit and argue over the most minute part of a piece, and try and understand conceptually why a sound should or should not be there. In other words, they may be the conceptual art of music. In the next half hour you will hear tracks from their very first album and their most recent album 10 years on. This first track is titled The Fare to Get There from their very first album. Following that is in mind from their most recent album, You, You're a History in Rust. After that, Her Story of Glory and finally, again from their first album, Onions. OPEN STUDIOS: WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST EXPERIENCE OF ART (or the earliest you can remember)? For a few weekends a year, San Francisco artists open their studios open and invite everyone in. I work in a studio space with a collection of painters and sculptors and I tried to think of a way I could contribute. So I laid out a mic, mini disc and headphones and asked people to record themselves answering this question: What is your first experience of art (or the first one you can remember)? This is a collection of the answers I received. I wasn't even there to record but people did a lovely job of holding the mic and sharing some of their early experiences. Tara Wray was born in Manhattan, Kansas and raised by an undiagnosed yet evidently mentally unstable single mother. Tara never knew what mood her mother would be in, when she might want to pick up and move as she did every year, what might drive her to become angry or over protective, insulting or adoring. there was no consistency, a lot of fear and a sense that although tara was the daughter, she had to act as the mother. When Tara was 20 years old, she left home and went as far as she could. She studied in Finland, then New York and didn't speak to or see her mom for 6 years. During that time, she wrote about her, thought about her, cried about her, missed her, was angry at her and longed to see her. The only way she would do so however was on her own terms and it was then that she decided to make a film. Having never picked up a camera before, Tara decided to make a film about her mom, their reunion, their past and the desire to come back together. Tara's debut film titled Manhattan, Kansas has won a number of awards, has been traveling around the country and was part of The Independent Film Festival here in San Francisco. Jens Hoffman was director of exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London and he recently moved to San Francisco to head the Wattis Institute, a gallery space housed in the California College of Arts. Wattis is one of the most innovative galleries in San Francisco with exhibitions that offer a real sense of curatorial practice at its best. As we discuss in this interview, Jens believes in the strength of a curator to direct a show that is at once surprising and offers a new way of seeing. What don't we see, what passes us by, how can a curator help us see more clearly, change the context of a space and of our presence in it? I spoke with Jens after he had been here for two weeks. He had already planned two years of programming at the Wattis. We spoke about his thoughts on place, time and the role of a curator and how it mirrors his experience of that as a theatre director. When Mark Becker set out to make Romantico, he never imagined the film would turn out as it had. As he will reveal in this interview I had with him, he was living in the Mission district of San Francisco, an ethnically mixed and increasingly gentrified neighborhood where gringos like Mark eat burritos and visit cantinas. The relationship is generally amicable but the circumstances of each culture remain slightly unclear. Often in the Mission, patrons of bars and restaurants come across mariachis, or mexican musicians, belting out songs from the homeland, as if it's their passion. But the fact is that many of these performers have struggled across the border and found themselves here, only to struggle to make a few dollars a night, just enough to send back home and make a difference. The story of Romantico follows such a person, Carmelo, but reveals a much more in depth experience and past. Carmelo wanted to tell his story, of his childhood, leaving school at the age of 7 to beg for money for his family, struggling to raise his own kids, a bout of depression, the strength that he had to keep himself and his loved ones strong and the arduous and seemingly inevitable journey from Mexico to America.....and maybe even back again. ART BASEL MIAMI'S SOUND ART LOUNGE Art Basel Miami has become the largest art fair in the world. Artists, galleries, curoators, collectors and any of those interested in the arts join together for 5 days in balmy Miami to buy, share, celebrate, question and experience the growing world of art. Sound Art has now made a stronger appearance at Art Basel Miami and this year the Sound Art Lounge was a walk through the botanical gardens with the accompaniment of sounds—of birds, insects, opera, words, anything that curator David Weinstein could come up with. I spoke with David at Art Basel about the collection of sounds he has put together. To gear the sounds themselves, please click on the links below. ART BASEL MIAMI'S SOUND ART LOUNGE—PART 1 ART BASEL MIAMI'S SOUND ART LOUNGE—PART 2 ART BASEL MIAMI'S SOUND ART LOUNGE—PART 3 Bjørn Melhus is an artist based in Berlin but shown all over the world. His main medium is sound and video and he uses these to subvert and re-contextualize American television—the evangelists, the home shopping networkers, the daytime talk shows. In so doing, we are forced to look at the reality we so readily accept, a reality that televison consistently presents. And observe the ways in which we see ourselves through this scripted world. THE BLOOD OF YINGZHOU DISTRICT "Extend your arm, bear the pain of a needle. Then flex your arm, 50 Yuan is earned." This was one of many jingles created by blood banks in China, which rural people committed to memory. But due to unsafe practices, thousands of impoverished Chinese contract HIV and other diseases through contaminated blood, often leaving behind orphaned children to raise each other or depend on compassionate families for support. Hong Kong-born filmmaker Ruby Yang and award-winning producer Thomas Lennon followed these orphans in the rural villages of Yingzhou District for one year and the film, The Blood of Yingzhou District, was born. NO MUSIC DAY and BEYOND THE CALL In the first half of the show, the voices of people on the street in San Francisco talking about what music means to them, some of their best experiences of music and even humming a few tunes (is humming music?). And later in the show, the more usual Sight Unseen fare, an interview with documentarian Adrian Belic (Genghis Blues) talking about his recent film, Beyond the Call, about three humanitarians whom Adrian travels the world with for 6 years observing what they do, how, why and the shock at what unusual humanitarians they are. Jewish culture in America is quite powerful. I say culture because although Judaism is a religion, it carries with it a strong cultural component. As a result, the identity of a Jew and how that identity manifests in their personal life is quite fluid. This week, you will hear the voices of three artists exploring this issue in an exhibition at the San Francisco Jewish Museum. The show is called the Jewish Identity Project. It began in New York and has found its way here. I spoke with three artists from the show. Jaime Permuth, a Guatemalan Jew, one of only 1000 from Guatemala City. Jessica Shokrian, an American from Iranian/Jewish descent, and Chris Verene, a gentile as they say, a non jew who grew up in what was first town in A,erica to have Jewish settlers. Jaime documented the conversion of a middle aged woman into Judaism, Jessica created a collection of video pieces that were deeply personal and reflective of her identity and what created that identity and Chris followed the last few years of a close friend of his father's in his hometown, Max, a jew who escaped the holocaust and came to the US by himself. How is our identity formed, what does our religion say about who we are, why is it difficult to identify what Judaism is, and how murky has the term become as we observe from afar the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Does that have anything to do with Judaism per say, and in the end, how does it affect identity? . To learn more about The Jewish Identity Project, please visit www.thejewishmuseum.org. JONESTOWN: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF THE PEOPLE'S TEMPLE On November 18th, 1978, 909 members of Jim Jones' congregation called The People's Temple consciously drank Kool Aid mixed with cyanide and died in Jonestown, Guyana. The event was viewed as the largest mass suicide in history and shattered the hopes that thousands had for The People's Temple. Many of those who died were children, and what remains absolutely shocking is how could one man convince hundreds of people to kill themselves in a community they had built in the jungles of South America. Jonestown: The Life and Death of People's Temple traces the rise and fall of the congregation and follows the life of its charismatic leader Jim Jones. Filmmaker Stanley Nelson, a new york native but recent transplant to the Bay Area made this brilliant documentary after he had heard the voices of several of the former member of the People's Temple on the radio. As we discussed, he was amazed at the positive reflections these members had. What had the People's Temple created before everything went so awfully wrong and how had it affected the survivors who didn't die on that fateful day in 1978. Stanley Nelson speaks with former members, shows footage from the community and congregation of the People's Temple, and draws us in to the development of Jim Jones as a person, a leader, and what some may call, a murderer. I spoke with Stanley Nelson about the history of the People's Temple and the effect the making of the film had on him as a person, amongst other things. To learn more about Jonestown, please visit www.firelightmedia.org. In 1923, Edward Weston was in love. He had fallen in love with a fiery, beautiful Italian woman named Tina Modotti and decided to move to Mexico with her. She learned photography from him, they took photographs together and they had a love affair that lasted for three years. The thing is, their love was challenging and their visions almost opposites. Weston relished in beauty, in form and shape, in abstraction while Modotti saw art as a means to create change, her work was about the people, the peasants, those that struggled and her intention was to bring light to the human side of experience, not the aesthetic one. Eventually Weston and Modotti wen their separate ways but the exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, titled Mexico as Muse, brings their visions together side by side. The works are well executed, beautiful. They show us Mexico, free from civil unrest, open to a burgeoning art community, glorious in light and challenged by issues of class, of the divide between the indigenous and the newer settlers. What Mexico as Muse reminds us of is the connection we in America have to mexico, a connection all too often forgotten or denied. It also illustrates that inevitable question that rises in artists: what is the point of my work, what is its purpose and how does the purpose of beauty versus action manifest. I spoke with Sandra Phillips, senior curator of photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. To learn more about Mexico as Muse please visit www.sfmoma.org. In 2005, Laura Poitras had had enough. She was sitting in her apartment in Tribeca New York and day after day, she was reading about the challenges, some may say atrocities, occurring in Iraq. What was happening there, how were American soldiers creating democracy there, what were the consequences of such a "pursuit" and what was the story behind the news coverage, behind the facts. Poitras, an American woman, decided to go to Iraq on her own, no protection, no understanding of language, very few contacts, and a huge sense of belief, a belief that exceeded any fear she had. She wanted to cover the elections in Iraq, elections being one of the foremost representations of democracy. She stayed there for eight months and filmed almost every angle one could surrounding the 2005 elections. Potras is a verité filmmaker, a style of documentary filmmaking in which the filmmaker is never seen or heard, the only, and maybe most potent way their presence comes across is through their lens and the choices they make of what to look at and what to reveal. Poitras did not want to be a character in her film, she wanted a protagonist that could represent the struggle, someone we as viewers could connect with and understand, and whilst at Abu Ghraib prison, she met Dr. Riyadh. Riyadh is an Iraqi doctor, a Sunni, a father of six and a political candidate. While an outspoken critic of the occupation in Iraq, Riyadh is just as outspoken about the necessity of democracy. We see Riyadh with his patients, we share dinners with his family, we sit in on political meetings, we eavesdrop on private discussions he shares with his wife. And we see soldiers, army officers, peace keepers, arms dealers, residents, visitors, UN officials and children. In fact, it seems hard to imagine a place where Laura Poitras didn't get in, her access was remarkable and her compassionate curiosity shines in this film titled My Country, My Country. We hear the voice of Laura Poitras speaking about why she made My Country, My Country, how, and the power of belief in the face of danger. To learn more about My Country, My Country, please visit www.zeitgeistfilms.com. Several months ago, two photographers in Los Angeles were asked to document their neighbors Quincañera, a rite of passage in Mexican culture in which a girl is introduced to womanhood at the age of 15. The tradition is an ancient one, dating back to the Aztec period. There are several things that every quincenera has, one is lots of pink, pink clothes, pink cake, pink ribbopns, pink everything. There are waltzes, serenades, church processions and a huge party. And it takes months to prepare. Directors Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer observed the preparations from their Echo Park home in Los Angeles and after doing the photo series for their neighbor, decided a film must be made. Within four months, Quniceañera was written, funded and shot. The film was born. My name is Tania Ketenjian and today on Sight Unseen I speak with the main actors of the film, Jesse Garcia and Emily Rios. Next week, the directors. Quniceañera was made in a kitchen sink drama style, a british genre of film making where all personal family stories are brought to the surface—secrets, lies, loves, fears. In this case, the film presents issues of gentrification, sexuality, modernity, religion, parent child relations, love, commitment and acceptance. And it reveals what happens when a culture moves to America— what traditions do their bring with them, how do those traditions change and how do older generations accept those changes. I spoke with Emily and Jesse about their own experiences and perceptions about the issues that come up in the film. Both coming from a background of Jehovah's Witnesses, they had never had many celebrations. Here, Emily speaks about what experience she brought to the film and her first memories of a quinceañera. In part two, I speak with the directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland. To learn more about Quinceñera, please visit www.sonyclassics.com/quinceanera. JUSTINO, NIGHT NIGHT AND ME-DI-ATE The term sound art is a funny one, at least it seems a bit odd because any time I mention it, people seem to wriggle their eyes. What do you mean sound art, do you mean music, found sound, random recordings, field recordings, bird calls. I suppose the term is difficult to explain. I see it as a manipulation of recorded sound through a computer program. But when you speak to a sound artist, it seems like the art form came upon them when they first started listening to music and decided to play around with the a tape deck and cassette to change the way a pre-recorded piece sounds. I find this exciting because it seems to be what artists truly do well, expand the way something already is thereby changing the way in which we experience it. San Francisco is famous for its electronic music/sound art scene. When I first moved here three years ago, I went to a sound show where I was asked to put on blindfolds and experience the vibration of sound, be immersed in it. As a result, I lost sense of time and space, my normal faculties of sight and sense were completely affected and I experienced sound in a different way. Project Soundwave is the creation of appreciator Alan So. He started a company called mediate in which his ultimate goal has been to "challenge perspectives to inspire new and unique experiences within ourselves and the world around us. He wants audiences to look beyond the surface, and look deep into ideas and works critically, imaginatively and without limitation." Thus he has begun a sound series titled Soundwave bringing together sound artists, dancers, writers and filmmakers to provide a space where collaboration can occur and observe the ways that collaboration expands boundaries. On this weeks Sight Unseen, the voice of Alan So and two of his artists who took part in Soundwave, Justino and Night Night. Their pieces weave in and out of their answers. To learn more about med-ia-te, please visit www.med-ia-ate.net. The sounds you are hearing are the sounds of the opening at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts last week. I walked through this show that had a massive sculpture that spelled out Oakland, films and videos, drawings, paintings and music. The show is called Sampling Oakland and it does just what it says, it offers a sampling of some of Oakland's up and coming galleries and art spaces. Oakland is just across the Bay form San Francisco but has long been known not so much for its art work but more for its higher level of crime and its lower income population. What many seem to forget is that in the 50s 60s and 70s , Oakland was a bastion for music, specifically jazz, what many believe to be America's only original art form. But as Oakland became more and more neglected, many of these clubs that attracted artists from all over the world were forced to close. It seems like art is now having a resurgence there. San Francisco is simply too expensive for artists and its space and time that artists need to produce their work. How this affects a community, what art brings and takes away from culture and how this manifests specifically in oakland are some of the topics we visit in this interview. I spoke with the curator of Sampling Oakland, Berin Golunu, along with the owner of one of the older art spaces in Oakland Kevin Slagle of Ego Park and Nicole Neditch of Mama Buzz Cafe. To learn more about Sampling Oakland, please visit www.ybca.org. UNDERCOVER SURREALISM AT THE HAYWARD GALLERY IN LONDON: PART ONE UNDERCOVER SURREALISM AT THE HAYWARD GALLERY IN LONDON: PART TWO Georges Bataille, surrealist artist, coin collector, librarian and editor of the magazine Documents once said: "A museum is comparable to the lung of a great city, every sunday the throng flows into the museum like blood and leaves it fresh and purified. The museum is the colossal mirror in which man contemplates himself, in short in all his aspects, finds himself literally admirable and abandons himself to the ecstasy expressed in all art journals." This week Sight Unseen visits the Hayward Gallery where a show titled Undercover Surrealism is on display. The story is this: Quirky surrealist Georges Battaille (author of such notorious erotic works as The Story of the Eye and The Tears of Eros) was given some funding to create a magazine titled Documents, that reflected upon the growing Surrealist movement. His tack was to bring ideas and objects together in Documents that one wouldn't necessarily correlate and be critical in ways that most didn't expect . An image of a big toe along side a painting by Dali, a documentary about aquatic life along side a film showing a woman leaping out of a seashell. Bataille was radically pessimistic and highly subversive and thus the magazine itself was controversial only lasting two years, from 1929-1930. However the ideas and vision it espoused continue to resonate. The Hayward has brought Documents to life, transforming the gallery into the magazine itself, text on the walls, the objects in Documents presented just as they were on paper. I spoke with Simon Baker, co-curator of this exhibition and an expert in Surrealist art. The exhibit was 3 years in the making and Simon explains how it came about. To learn more about Undercover Surrealism, please visit www.hayward.org.uk. In 1995, Larry Clark came out with his first film titled KIDS. it followed a group a teenagers in New York City and revealed a life of sex, drugs and general debauchery. One of the shocking aspects of the film was the way it introduced AIDS into youth culture. But in certain ways, that issue almost seemed secondary. It was the mayhem of these kids, how free they were and in that freedom, the way they relinquished morals and responsibilities. Larry Clark's lens was an intimate one. He brilliantly shot the footage in an almost innocent way, just watching and expressing what he saw. See, the film is fiction but you wouldn't be able to necessarily tell that it is. There is an honesty, a bluntness to these characters that surpasses the norms of traditional fiction cinema. This isn't at all surprising considering Larry Clark's background. He came to fame with his photography collection titled Tulsa, a chronicle of his own youth, of his community of friends who lived on the edge, shall we say, drinking, taking drugs, outsiders, not part of a society except for the one they created. Clark seems to be fascinated by the outsider and intrigued with revealing the truth behind a widely accepted veneer. His latest film, Wassup Rockers, re-visits the theme of youth on the edge. Three years ago Larry Clark was strolling down Venice Beach in California and came across a group of young, central american skaters from south central LA. They were dressed as punk rockers, tight jeans, metal belts, black t-shirts. When he realized where they were from, he found that there was a contradiction between the image of south central and the reality of these kids who were from there. The thing is, South Central is usually depicted as a largely black neighborhood and has often been represented in films (such as Boyz in the Hood and Menace to Society) as the hood, home to american blacks who dress in baggy jeans, baseball caps, carry guns and deal drugs. Wassup Rockers unravels this accepted truth, widening the lens on a community and society that is often myopically represented. Like KIDS, Wassup Rockers dispels our notions, in this case those of South Central showing a different world within that community. Also like KIDS, Clarks vision is curious, almost innocent, nearly fragile and evidently intimate. It's rare to grow close to this community and by the end of the film, you feel like a connection has been established, one between the viewer and the subjects. And although the film is fictional, you can't help but slip into the sense that you're watching a documentary, it all seems so real, and it is. I spoke with Larry Clark right before the film opened here in San Francisco. He shared his thoughts on teenagers, his experiences while making this film and how the kids in Wassup Rockers changed his life. To learn more about Larry Clark, please visit www.larryclarkofficialwebsite.com. Patrik Fredrikson and Ian Stallard met each other while studying at St. Martin's College in London. They fell in love, began a relationship and pursued their individual passions. In the case of Ian his was ceramics and as for Patrik, industrial design. Their work was their life and their life their work and their personal identity was mirrored in each other. Like any strong relationship and one founded when you're young, Patrik and Ian grew together and their commitment to their art seemed to do the same. They realized that the process by which they were creating their individual pieces had become a collaborative one. They discussed ideas and ways of seeing and although working apart, they were actually creating together. In effect, as artists they were and are one. thus, a few years ago, they proclaimed the moniker fredrikson stallard dropping their individual identities as artists. They have developed a series of works that include a myriad of mediums, some quite fine like procelain others more industrial like acrylic. But beyond the work itself is a concept, as always, an idea that travels deeper than the tangible quality of an object. Their pieces inspire you to move beyond your presumptions of what works well together, they ask you to relinquish your comfort zone, some pieces almost beg you to peel away an exterior so as to discover a glorious interior. A little over a year ago, Patrik and Ian brought their life and work together in a space in east London, a rare gem in a city and country bubbling with people. They have a prisitne live work space that they use as an office, a gallery, a studio and a home. You drive through a narrow alleyway that looks decidedly unassuming. Behind a fence, the wooden doors open onto a small garden, sometimes visited by a mysterious feline, the metal shutters come up and your faced with a white entrance, a pile of massaged clay that works as a coffee table and their pieces greeting you as you organically move through the space. It's a sight to behold and one that is quite impressive for this young duo. But they are not shy to grandeur. Their work is presented in some of the most well respected spaces across the world and their message continues to forge through. Ispoke with Patrik and Ian at their studio when I came to london. They explained to me how they dicovered their space and gave me an insight into what their vision might be To learn more about them, please visit www.fredriksonstallard.com. It seems like issues of gender roles and identity continue coming to the forefront, especially in the art world. As we look back on history, it was the male artists that always took the lead, women were not meant to be artists. They were the subject of great art works but as artists themselves, they faded in the background. After the women's movement both in America and beyond, women started claiming their rights and were more often finding themselves in roles often relegated to men. They even began acting more like men and the identity of masculinity became blurred. In the 90's, something called a crisis began. en started become emascualted. How are men supposed to be, what do women want and how can a man be "a man" without offending a woman. The questions emerge in the art world as well as male artist reflect upon their identity and explore it through their work. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has a series called New Work and this year, curator Joshua Shirkey has chosen three young male artists who directly look at notions of masculinity and the ways in which these manifest through image and medium. Most of these works are treated with a certain traditionalism, harking back to painting and illustration. Most often they raise a certain tension between subject and medium. In the case of Marcelino Goncalves, he tends to reflect upon the expected development of boy to man and observes how that development can be deceptive and result in a series of, well, unexpected results. His technique creates a certain dreamlike quality to the work moving the viewer into a state of reflection rather than observance. Zak Smith observes the relationship between male painter and female subject. While his work may look a bit more modern, his treatment is reminiscent of early 20th century painters who observed sexuality in a beautiful way distracting us from the subject matter by lulling us with color and vibrancy. Finally, Tim Gardner uses the often unpredictable nature of watercolors to present banal male iconographic images, the sportsman, the rough and tumble. But one wouldn't know that he was using watercolors. I myself made the mistake of thinking his works were photographs never ponce assuming that one could control such an fluid medium as watercolor. Watercolor is almost feminine but the subject matter of Gardner's pieces is entirely masculine and thus a tension evolves. One walks away from this collection of works wondering what the male role is not simply as an artist but also as a member of society. I spoke with curator Joshua Shirkey about these works at the museum. Here we are looking at a piece by Marcelino Goncalves titled Small Town Boy. To learn more about the New Work, please visit www.sfmoma.org. America is supposed to be a melting pot, a haven for those that cannot sustain themselves in the place they live. The idea is, "come to the US, you can realize your dreams, create a home, be embraced by those from your own culture." However rather than us all being connected, so to speak, immigrants feel the constant burn of foreign-ess, a certain lack of acceptance, a disparity between their home and the place they have been led to believe could be the bearer of their hopes and their higher standard of living. I come from an immigrant family. Although my grandfather moved here from Lebanon over 10 years ago, he continues to say "I lost Lebanon and never gained America." Yet, amazingly he and all the other members of my family didn't have to struggle to arrive here. Their visas were swiftly granted, they became professionals, established themselves, created a life for themselves and became as comfortable as they could. But what happens to those that don't have it so easy, that don't speak the language, don't have the support of their family. This becomes most evident with the Mexican and Central American population in California. I mean, California used to Mexico and America managed to almost steal the land and make it their own. Every morning I walk out of my building and see Mexican day laborers waiting for a job, to be picked up by a stranger, taken to a strange place, to do work and send money home, to survive. With an American passport, you can do almost anything, work where you want, travel where you want (for the most part) but without that, you just struggle. Recently issues of immigration have come to the forefront. Immigrants can't take it anymore. They want amnesty, they want rights, they want to be heard. And hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets to effect change. I spoke with three artists who have created pieces for a show at Galeria de la Raza in San Francisco called Illegal Entry. They are Nora Raggio from Argentina, Consuelo Jimenez from Mexico and Robin Lasser, from California. Let's begin with a sound piece by Nora Raggio titled What Side Are You On? To learn more about the exhibit, please visit www.galeriadelaraza.org. This year, the Black Panther Party is celebrating it's 40th anniversary and in tribute to that Yerba Buena Center for the Arts has put together an exhibition titled Black Panther Rank and File. Established in the hey day of the civil rights movement and the radicalism of the 60's, the Black Panthers called for greater autonomy of black Americans and correction of the injustices of racism. While the Black panthers were devoted to community growth and advancement of awareness and strength within American black culture, their image has been overshadowed by their confrontational approach towards authority. They believed that one of the core foundations and perpetrators of racism were agents of law enforcement and their outright and vociferous reaction to that led to an eventual breakdown. However their legacy shines on and although the party itself may have dissipated in the 70's, there still exists a following and a community of Panthers across the United States. While Rank and File documents the creation and rise of the Black Panthers through artifacts, it also presents current and older art works inspired by the Black Panther movement. As is usual for this art center, one is struck by all kinds of media: painting, sculpture, film, music. I spoke with curator Rene de Guzman and artist Esu Odundide exploring issues about art and artifact, inspirations from movements, collectives, and the importance of art as an agent for change. For more information about Black Panthers Rank and File, please visit www.ybca.org. The Vietnam War has been the subject of countless films and documentaries. We can't seem to get enough of it and the closer we look the less sense it seems to make. What was America doing in the jungles of Vietnam, how was it combating Communism and establishing democracy and why did the war itself fall apart so dramatically and destructively. As a supposed super power, we couldn't even hold our own, in fact, we were beaten, and well, by a people simply fighting to stay alive, a culture who had been fighting for their independence for over 3000 years . The atrocities we committed in Vietnam are still being revealed and the attempt to hide what happened there continues. That might explain the continuing intrigue with the war itself and the success of documentaries that shed light on this mystery. Especially now when war is so palpable. Here we are, in the midst of war again, fighting for something we claim to be in the interest of the land we seem to be destroying. The evidence of the past becomes all the more valuable as we look to estimate what might happen in the future. Sir No Sir, David Zeiger's documentary about the GI War resistance here and in Vietnam reveals an overdo story about a movement that happened during the war that has been swiftly and effectively covered up. For more information about Sir! No Sir!, please visit www.sirnosir.com. This week, the words of Dennis Crompton, founding member of the infamous and groundbreaking architectural group called Archigram. Archigram was formed in Britain in the early 1960's. A group of six young architects with a vision for the future and penchant for fantastic creations, creations that were developed with the interest of the individual in mind. The world was going through a revolution, technology was just rearing its progressive head, and archigram had the audacity and the guts to voice their opinion, illustrate through drawings and writings, and declare their vision to the rest of the world. The archigram group continued developing what they call experimental architecture until 1974. After that, they began to teach and influenced future generations to have the same visions they had, the same awareness of society and the responsibility that architecture and design has to promote the needs of its environment. I spoke with Dennis Crompton who is visiting San Francisco, spreading his message to students here. We spoke about Katrina, homelessness, cars changing into playgrounds and the future of design. For more information about Archigram, please visit www.archigram.net. The voice of Wim Wenders, filmmaker, photographer, painter, writer, and director of such films as Wings of Desire, Buena Vista Social Club, Paris, Texas and most recently Don't Come Knocking. Wim Wenders was born in Germany just a few weeks before the end of World War II. Germany was a torn country at that time and Wenders was curious about the world beyond its borders. America, with its dramatic landscapes and the intrigue it inspires through film was particularly interesting to him and later in his life he came here to preserve the parts of this country that in his mind seemed to be disappearing. Having seen his own country destroyed, I wonder if Wenders uses his art to prevent the crumbling of other places, to preserve a beauty that is too often ignored. Wenders was a painter and discovered that film allowed him to paint somehow. By structuring a shot, he could create films that look like a series of paintings, filled with light, color, realism. His 1984 film Paris Texas is an excellent example of this and one of Wenders' most well known films to date. Like Don't Come Knocking, Wenders most recent work, Paris, Texas is about a lost man searching for himself within the landscape of his mind and that of the American West. The American West, with it's yellow toned hills, all encompassing blue sky, the limitless vision to an unattainable horizon. Wender's fascination with America is not just with its land but its culture as well, its cars and music, and we sense that in Don't Come Knocking. Written by and starring playwright Sam Shepard, most of the film takes place in Butte, Montana, a town that, in Wenders' words, looks like it's been built by Edward Hopper. Brilliantly shot by cinematographer Franz Lustig, Don't Come Knocking presents the viewer with a timeless America, an almost forgotten America. Wenders worked with San Shepard on the concept for the script and the film at times seems like a play, offering almost a confusion between what is real and what is fiction. It's in this confusion that Wenders likes to live, his life and his art inseperable, each feeding the other. For more information about Wim Wenders, please visit www.wim-wenders.com. In the last year, we have been bombarded with images of disaster, whether it be natural ones such as Hurricane Katrina or more controllable ones such as the war in Iraq. Images are everywhere and a tale can be told through them, even if you are not there to experience what they reveal. This was obviously not so in the early 1900s. Photography was still relatively new and lay people with cameras was completely novel. Kodak came out with what was then the most popular of its kind, the Brownie, and more and more people were going out into the streets and shooting what they saw, capturing time, change and events on film. This is especially evident in the archived images of the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco. The advent of photography and the abundance of photographers made this event palpable and understandable even 100 years later. Mark Klett is a re-photographer meaning he goes to places that have been photographed long before and re-photographs those same spots, observing the ways in which they have changed and evolved. He has mostly done this in the wilderness but he recently took on a project that would bring him to the urban environment. He had never been to San Francisco but he wanted to demonstrate how much an urban environment can develop, especially after disaster, and how rapidly and dramatically that change takes place. Mark went to the Legion of Honor, a historic museum in San Francisco that has a huge archive of images from the time, and with curator Karin Breuer, developed an exhibition in which images he took in the last year stood side by side with images from the quake, same spots, different centuries. Photography is all about time, a moment captured, frozen. This project reminds us of how that idealogy behind photography is somewhat deceptive, that which is captured is ever evolving and these images of the development of San Francisco from the quake till now demonstrate that poignantly. It also shows how differently amatuers and professionals frame their shots. The main professional photographer we speak of in the interview is the infamous Arnold Genthe. Here, Karin speaks about the difference between professional images and amateur ones and takes us on a journey through selected works of Mark Klett and other photographers in After the Ruins. For more information about After the Ruins, please visit www.thinker.org. On a recent Friday evening in San Francisco, the Citizen loft hidden by the austere facade of the exterior of a building was filled with people, dancing, drinking, and looking at art work. It was an unusual opening, generally openings are a bit stuffy, people have entered into a space that dictates how they should act and perceive, they take on a role they are accustomed to set in place by all the previous times they have entered a gallery. There was something different about this though, it was a party, a gathering, and an event where curiosity could be satiated.....The work was challenging, porcelain vases with horsehair, acrylic rugs, a wall where a bulletproof duvet hung, gold dipped coffee stirrers from McDonald's, gold saw horse brackets, large cleaning brushes in the shape of crosses.....And all of it was quite beautiful. Therein lies a contradiction....somewhere along the way, conceptual art lost its beauty and it seems like Citizen is seeking that beauty out, with irreverence and wit and playfullness and care. It's difficult to pinpoint exactly what Citizen does. It curates, manufactures, distributes, and creates conceptual design, design that breaks paradigms, design that is somewhat indefinable. One of their artists is Tobias Wong and he came to San Francisco for the Friday night affair....He is the creator of some of the works that were presented including the bullet proof rose and duvet.....He also has some clear and distinct ideas of what is beautiful to him, what the term he coined "paraconceptual" means, and how his work and idealogy fits in with Philip's, the owner of Citizen. Here Philip and Tobi are discussing a ring that Tobi is wearing, a key ring that Tobias wears everyday. For more information about Citizen-Citizen, please visit www.citizen-citizen.com. For more information about Tobias Wong, please visit www.brokenoff.com. If you're Armenian, you may be one of those Armenians that watches the credits of films to see if an Armenian was involved in the production and when you catch the tell tale -ian, you get excited, or maybe you're one of those Armenians that asks other dark haired and dark eyed people if they have Armenian heritage. You may just eat the food, speak the language, maybe you go to Armenian church, or events, or maybe none of these, maybe your Armenianess is a silent one, a private experience, or maybe not meaningful at all. I am Armenian. Although I was born in United States, I grew up in an Armenian home. We spoke the language, ate the food, had carpets all over our house, my parents are immigrants, my hair is dark and my skin is olive, when I go to an Armenian event, I look around me and discover that I look like everyone else, and when I meet an Armenian, at the supermarket, an art opening, in the airport, or at a party, I get very excited. It makes me feel strange that it should mean so much, it seems nationalistic and ethnocentric, but its seems so real. What also seems real is that I have never felt part of the Armenian community and I continue to explore what it means to be Armenian. When the Armenian film festival came to San Francisco two years ago, I couldn't wait to go. For one, I wouldn't have to explore the credits for an Armenian name, they would all be Armenian.....but more importantly, I had a sense that film might be an effective way for Armenians to explore and express their identity. What was that identity and how might it be expressed through the malleable medium of film. I was amazed to discover that there were films in the festival from all over the world, Lebanon, Canada, Russia, France, the UK, Armenia and the US. Armenians are a diaspora after all, that shouldn't be very surprising.....The more surprising thing however was how risky the films were, they weren't straight narratives by any means, some weren't even narrated. There were animated films, silent films, films as artistic image, and they were all taking chances, breaking boundaries. The thing is Armenians don't seem to be boundary crossers and yet here, through film, some have found a way to express who they are and do it in a way that is true to their aesthetic sensibility. That's what film festivals can offer, a chance for filmmakers to express themselves and find a home for their voice, regardless of how is heard. I spoke with Anahid Kassabian, Thea Farhadian, and Hrayr Eulmessekian, the three curators of the Armenian Film Festival. Here, Thea shares what she found surprising about the films in the festival. For more information about the Armenian Film Festival, please visit www.aremenianfilmfestival.org. Who are we, what constitutes our personality and tendencies, to what extent do we act on instinct and how much do we rely on memory. Imagine for a moment waking up not knowing who you are, you're past experiences completely wiped away, knowledge of your family and friends non existent, your wealth of experience gone. And yet, your ability to learn, to walk, to speak, to dance, to live is all there. You have an awareness of yourself but that self is in a nascent state, just emerging, almost as if out of the womb. This is the story of Doug Bruce. At the age of 35, he experienced retrograde amnesia. He had grown up in England, moved to New York and worked a stock broker, became very successful, retired at the age of 30, lived in a beautiful loft, studied photography, was sharp and cynical and handsome, and unattached. One evening, he mounted the F Train and the next morning woke up to an environment he didn't know, buildings he couldn't recognize, smell completely unfamiliar, and a sense of himself gone. Rupert Murray is a british filmmaker and close friend of Doug. When he heard of what happened to him, he asked Doug if he could film the process of redicovery Doug was going through. The film Unknown White Male was born. We see Doug meet his family for the first time, eat berries and hear the rolling stones, touch snow, and experience the power of the sea, hear music and see films, learn about history, art, geography, see friends, and search through papers and pictures, short films and old belongings for clues to the person he was before. We hear the words of psychiatrists talk about what memory is, and we reflect on ourselves, our own experience, and explore to what extent that makes us who we are. I spoke with Rupert Murray here in San Francisco. Here he describes some of his favorite bits of the film. For more information about Unknown White Male, please visit www.unknownwhitemalemovie.com. The Saddam Art Center in Bagdad seems to be a contradiction in terms. Room after room contains billboard size portraits of Saddam, the "art" of these images all pervasive throughout the center. In the back room however you come to an image of a nude woman clinging to a barren tree. It almost seems like a mirage, its unique presence becoming dreamlike. According to Heather Raffo, creator of the play 9 Parts of Desire, when she came upon this image there was a light before it, the woman's head was bowed. She discovered that the title of the piece was savagery and it inspired Raffo to take an 11 year journey interviewing Iraqi woman from all over the world. It began with the creator of the nude, an exuberant, passionate, sensuous painter, one of the first women we meet in the play. She speaks of affairs she has had, she speaks of Saddam randomly picking women and claiming that they were prostitutes and beheading them. In one moment she says, “If I am not afraid, then there is no feeling.” This line resonates because it is the bedrock of the characters of the 9 women we meet in the play. It's the strength of their brutal honesty that shines through, their revelations of experience, of desire, of dreams left unfulfilled. And it's that magical intimacy of theatre, one that is felt when faced with one actor, running about on stage, moving through characters and voices, and reaching out to us to listen, to feel, to relate, to cheer, to sob, that makes this work so strong. Heather Raffo has performed this play herself since its inception, 2 hours, 9 characters. For the performance here in Berkeley she has passed the torch to Mozhan Marno. Joanna Settle continues to direct. I spoke with Mozhan and Joanna after opening night. Here Joanna shares her ideas of how portraying 9 women in essence portrays the women that reside in each of us, regardless of background or experience. For more information about Nine Parts of Desire, please visit www.met.com/9parts. Race in America is like the elephant in the room. It's just not talked about and yet it is so prevalent. We say that we're a melting pot, we say that we welcome all cultures, we say that equality is one of our most important values and yet neighborhoods stay segregated, and rights to education, healthcare, and living standards are simply unequal. It's difficult to pinpoint exactly why this is so in America. There's loads of speculation, is it the consequences of enslavement, is it about class above all else, is it simply due to silence, to a refusal to look at the issue of race, dismantle it and engender change. That's where art comes in. Somehow art or performance, opens up a dialogue that normal conversation cannot and it allows challenging ideas or traumas to be communicated in a way that is accessible. If it's done well. Brian Copeland's Not a Genuine Black Man has birthed a conversation that is long overdo, and much to his surprise. When Brian Copeland sat down to write his one man play, he never imagined it would grow into such a hit. He isn't a stranger to fame. For many years, he had a long running television program, he still has a radio talk show, and he's done loads of stand-up comedy acts opening for famous American performers. He always wanted to do a one act play but he wasn't sure what it would be about. He looked inside to find what his story is and it all came to him, his childhood, the choice his family made to move into an all white neighborhood in northern california, and the consequences that came with that choice. To explain all the different issues that Not a Genuine Black Man presents would be a challenge, Brian Copeland manages to fit so much in just a couple of hours, 32 different characters, loads of laughter and tragedy, and not one ounce of bitterness. That's one thing that's amazing about the man, he's not bitter, he's just telling a story, a true story, and he's giving us the opportunity to have a look into what it might be like to be a young black boy amongst white neighbors in post civil rights movement in america. The amazing thing is that so many people can relate because what the story is ultimately about is being an outsider and what happens when your outsiderness has to do with the color of your skin. The premise of the story is that Brian Copeland's mother wanted to move her family to a middle class neighborhood in Northern California. California is the north west and as legend had it, racism was not prevelant here. But when the Copeland's moved to San Leandro, they didn't find what they expected. Here Brian shares what San Leandro was like in the early 70's when he first moved there at the age of eight. For more information about Brian Copeland, please visit www.briancopeland.com. British artist Richard Long has taken over a gallery at the SF MoMA for the next few months. It is true that Richard Long's exhibition titled The Path is the Place is the Line has been curated by the photo department but it would be an injustice to limit his work to the medium of photography. In fact, it would be innacurate. Richard Long creates sculptures on land, he's an interventionist, and he works in the tradition of other artists such as Donald Judd, Robert Smithson, and James Turrell. These are artists who have broken out of the confined and limited space of a gallery and have taken the earth as their canvas, as their medium. However, Long stands out amongst these artists because his work incorporates a sense of journey.He travels by foot across vast amounts of land and creates work using the land along the way, circles of rocks, trails that weren't there before, water formations. As one british journalist aptly pointed out, to truly understand the work of Richard Long, one has to walk, and walk, and walk, one has to attempt to experience what he experiences and move through his process. That's the magical, intangible quality of his work, it's not so much about the result, it's the process he goes through. The solitary trek where the land becomes the art and his presence in it as a creator. The exhibit here in San Francisco tracks his 3 week long journey along the Pacific Crest Trail, an infamous trail along the central part of California, a path that has been trekked and photographed and documented. The gallery at the SF MoMA includes a triangle of rocks, much like what Long might create on his travels, a wall painting made of mud, and of course the images of his works along his journey. Sandra Phillips speaks about how democratic Richard Long is, how he is different from the land artists of America, and his connection to the romantics of the 19th century. I spoke with Sandra Phillips, senior curator of photography at the Museum. For more information about The Path is the Place is the Line, please visit www.sfmoma.org. You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war. Albert Einstein once said this and yet his theories were used in the creation of the hydrogen bomb. America is in a somewhat similar contradiction. We claim to want peace and justice and yet we continue to build the largest industrial military complex humankind has ever seen. And if you ask an American Why We Fight, their first answer is almost always the same--Freedom. When filmmaker Eugene Jarecki was making The Trials of Henry Kisisnger, he fell upon former president Eisenhower's farewell address to the American Public. In it, Eisenhower who was once a general claimed that, "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." Eisenhower could foresee the direction of America and he didn't like it. Jarecki was amazed by the candor and intuitive nature of this address. American presidents rarely lambast the direction of the government and in that vain the American media seems to keep the public in the dark. That's where Jarecki's documentaries come in. He believes that documentaries are meant to shed light and explore, to inspire discussion that may lead to change. Why We Fight does just that taking a look at specifically why we are in Iraq. Jarecki speaks with a New York City police officer who lost his son on 9.11, he speaks with a Vietnamese woman who aids in the creation of American bombs, he speaks with members of the CIA, and with political analysts like Gore Vidal, he even speaks with the grandchildren of Eisenhower himself. Jarecki says that he couldn't have made his film had he not received funding from countries outside of America and specifically the support of Nick Fraser, of Storyville fame. I spoke with Jarecki here in San Francisco where he was promoting his film. We discussed his childhood and how that influenced his filmmaking. For more information about Why We Fight, please visit www.sonyclassics.com. MUSEUM OF THE AFRICAN DIASPORA The Museum of the African Diaspora is situated in the heart of what is becoming the museum district of San Francisco. It takes up the bottom three floors of a famous hotel but you would never know it. It's facade commands a presence all it's own, not seeming part of anything else. And that is congruent with its ideals. It's one of a kind, the first museum dedicated to the African Diaspora. In fact, the museum espouses that we are all part of the African Daispora. The first humans were discovered in Africa and we are their descendants. When you first enter MoAD, after being welcomed by the museum staff and tempted by the colorful textiles in the museum store, you are faced with a map of the world made up of dots that slowly appear, initially in Africa and soon extending further out representing the travels of life from Africa to the rest of the world. The museum itself is divided into four main themes: origins, movement, adaptation, and transformation, themes that are consistent in every diaspora. But what is a diaspora, is it simply a dispersement of a people from their land? That may be so by definition, by the term diaspora is much more laden than that. It often implies expulsion, a forced leaving, an unwanted departure. However, The Museum of the African Diaspora explains how we are all part of a diaspora regardless of color, of race, of origin. The diaspora began hundreds of thousands of years ago, most likely in the country of Chad in Africa. MoAD believes that we can further understand this through art and it incorporates a host of different mediums in its exhibitions: film, sound, painting, sculpture, photography. These all play a role and all are used to create a crossroads between people from all over the world. Lizetta LaFalle Collins is the director of curatorial affairs at the museum. Here she explains how the museum came about. For more information about The Museum of the African Diaspora, please visit www.moadsf.org. In the late 50's, conceptual artist Yves Klein had a utopian vision of creating an architecture of air, walls, ceilings, furniture, would be made of air, and while these things would exist they wouldn't necessarily be visible. In the early 90's, Italian sculptor and performer Maurizio Cattelan claimed to the Italian police that an invisible sculpture had been stolen from his car. He was involved in a group show the following day and didn't have a piece to place in the exhibition. The police did in fact write up a report, not second guessing his claim of theft and the report was entered into the show. These are a couple examples of what you will encounter when you go to see the latest exhibition at the Wattis Institute titled A Brief History of Invisible Art. As curator Ralph Rugoff states, "invisible art challenges our assumptions by emphasizing art’s communicative possibilities over its visual qualities" and maybe most importantly it asks for our involvement, it asks us to take a closer look at the ideas behind the work and understand the work by experiencing it, not just looking at it. If you walk into the exhibit, you may think there's very little there but its bursting with ideas and energy, and it's that intangible fullness that Ralph Rugoff was after. For more information about Invisible Art, please visit www.wattis.org. Songwriter and performer Dominic Tandy is visiting us from London, England where he has been creating work and performing for several years, most recently as a solo act. Following in the tradition of performers like David Gray and Jeff Buckley, Dominic allows himself to follow the range of his voice, to reach highs in his tonality and be comfortable with the sound that emerges. He comes from a musical background, hearing his Mother singing opera in the livingroom of their home in Devon, on the coast of England. Today we will hear several of Dominic's most recent tracks, he came to the Bay Area for a week and we have the opportunity to catch a bit of his music. Here he introduces his first track... Normally Sight Unseen brings you the words and thoughts of artists of all different mediums talking about what they do, why they do it, and how it affects the world around them. This week though we're doing a tribute show to musician and composer Nick Drake. Nick Drake died on this very day November 25th, 1974. During his short lifetime, he wouldn't reach the fame that he has now. In fact, Nick was so shy and resistant to being seen that he would only want to accompany other acts when touring. Even when he was in the studio, he would play facing a wall to avoid other people's gazes. But his music is brilliant, his guitar technique unique, his voice raw and sensitive. Today we will hear pieces from Nick Drake's three different albums and the story of his musical career. For more information about Nick Drake, please visit www.nickdrake.com. Tamta Mikhalova has been an artist since she was born. Raised in Tbilisi Georgia, Tamta thrived in a community of arts that pushed her to explore the boundaries of her creativity. Two years ago, Tamta moved to the Bay Area from Georgia, leaving behind friends and family, a lifestyle and sense of community that was difficult to abandon. America, with all its opportunity, can be a lonely place and as an immigrant, one feels all the more excluded. However, Tamta regained her strength and has now opened a gallery in San Francisco. The work itself is a fusion of ancient and modern archetypes, ethnographic treasures and cultural icons. She loves Georgia, deeply and truly, and it shows in all different aspects of her work whether creating a landscape or delving into surreal images. I spoke with Tamta before she had moved into her new gallery space. Her home was covered in her work, paintings and fashion that she had created in the past few years. As we spoke of her work, her aunt played the piano. | |||||
